I recall that in class the Regional Narrative was described as being characterized by ‘nothing really happening’, which is really good at describing a good chunk of Coeur D’Alene. While I did not find the story particularly interesting, what I did find quite interesting was the history behind it, which we learned today in class. I’m not quite sure why, but I find information and history about labor disputes interesting. Perhaps it’s because they are David and Goliath stories, although in these, Goliath (the company owners) is usually triumphant over the small and weak David (the workers).
I think I also find this interesting because it is something interesting that has happened in our region. Our region is relatively young, compared to most of the country (and the world) so that is probably a part of it. The Pacific Northwest is also not a region that I tend to associate with struggles like this. When one hears about scabs, Pinkerton’s and violent strike one thinks about eastern urban areas such as Chicago or New York, or occurrences such as the Homestead Strike in Pennsylvania (Where the state militia was sent in after the Pinkerton’s failed to squelch hostilities). One (or I don’t at least) tend to associate this kind of behavior with the rural Pacific Northwest. As a result, when I hear about something like the Coeur D’Alene Strike of 1892 or the Centralia Massacre (yet another scene of union related violence in 1919) which happened in our own backyard, I am intrigued and interested.
I also found it really interesting that so close to the 20th century (8 short years away) there were portions of the west which were still very wild. While not the land filled with cowboys so common in Hollywood’s golden age, it was still a tough and formidable landscape, where hard people had to engage in backbreaking labor to scrape by.
1 comment:
Interesting that you don't see the Pacific Northwest associated with labor struggles. Come to think about it, I'm not sure that I ever thought of those struggles characterizing this area specifically. You're right, especially in terms of popular representations, we think about labor struggles happening in factory-type scenarios in urban areas (at least in terms of 20th century representations -- interesting right now about the Writers striking. That's also not a group I would commonly associate with labor struggles).
On reconsideration, do you think that the wildness, the rough, unhewn nature of the West might have actually made it more likely that the area would see labor strife.
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